


Strife

by midgetGoddess



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Post-Game(s), Post-Movie(s), Recovered Memories, References to Norse Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5280182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midgetGoddess/pseuds/midgetGoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud’s eyes lit up from more than just Mako.<br/>...<br/>There is a familiarity here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strife

**Author's Note:**

> Another piece by my Feisty_Kitten. It's a one shot this time.

For many years, Cloud could recall those asking him how he defeated Sephiroth in the reactor from their first confrontation after he fell into madness. At the time, with his shoddy memory due to mako poisoning and taking the persona of Zack he’d confidently told his friends he wasn’t a SOLDIER for nothing. Time had proven him a liar, and it took him a number of years after the first fall to piece together a better memory.

When asked again how he defeated Sephiroth the first time he had simply shrugged.  
“I don’t know. Luck, I suppose.” He remembered the pain and fear, but he also remembered the sheer hatred and grief too. Knowing everything that had been his past was unsalvageable, that Tifa might even be dead and Zack too.  
  
It took a foray into Nibelheim to jog the last memory loose. It was a request from Reeve and the WRO to deliver supplies to the engineers and scientists breaking down the old Reactor. He wandered slowly through the burnt husk of the village. The second burning had left too much dis-ease with the idea of trying to rebuild on top of a twice massacred village. He carries the heavy packs up to the reactors on foot, Fenrir unable to make the steep and narrow paths closer to the top from the village proper. He watches a wolf slink through the brush and onto the path; the massive beast swinging to regard him with a faint glow in gold eyes, Cloud matching it for its stare.  
  
It turns away, growling and a pack of eight others trot out, following the white and silver male across the path and into a thicker brush on the other side. Nibel Wolves were some of the world’s largest canids and Cloud smiles faintly, thinking of the runts he’d hunted to keep his mother and himself warm. A harrowing task…He blinks, wondering where the memory had come from.  
  
Tilting his head, he regards the paw prints in the snow before shifting his burden and climbing up further. He can almost hear the work site when he spots a sickly looking lone brown wolf slip through some bush onto a path that he’d never noticed on his last trek up the mountain. He considers his burden, then the noise of the crew. Weighing it out before he sets the box into a somewhat sheltered crag. Nothing would bother so many people in one place, nothing that wasn’t sick. That wolf had looked a bit ill and if it was the last vestiges of mako poisoned then it might attack the camp.  
  
Cloud trails after it, glad he brought the smaller pieces of First Tsurugi. The large blade would have hindered his silent movement through the scrub and over the ice even with his excellent footing and training from the likes of Vincent and Yuffie who insisted that SOLDIER did not mean he had to bull around like a too noisy Behemoth. He emerges into a small clearing and circles slowly, frowning when he cannot find any signs of paw prints despite having trailed the animal close enough to catch glimpses of brown fur.  
  
Cloud straightens by bits, hand curled loosely on the handle of his sword over his shoulder. He tenses, turning, sword out as the animal leaps from a high point on the rocks. Fangs snapping inches from his face and claws scrabbling at metal; he shoves it away and the beast snarls in frustration, slavering unnaturally with a too intense gleam to its green clouded eyes. He drops into a crouch and meets it for its next lunge. Cloud was shoved back by the beast’s ferocity and madness straight into a cave like structure previously veiled by a hackleberry bush. He shoves it off again and takes the aggressive stance, lunging at the animal dazed by being thrown into a rock face. His sword slips cleaning into its ribs. Making it twist and convulse with a gargled yelp and blood flecked foaming snarl. Its claws grazing the air before it lies still. The green never leaving eyes now clouded further by death. It’s body curled in pain from its death.  
  
Cloud frowns, slowly sliding his sword free; regarding the animal as he braced on the wall with one hand only to jerk when something glowed under his fingers. He snatches his hand back to himself, stepping back, staring at the symbol on the wall. It has a blue white tinge to it that’s fading the longer he looks. The lightning materia in his bracer prickles energy over his skin and he approaches closer. Cloud touched it again with a deliberate swipe of his palm and a little concentration, causing it to flare to life abruptly. The energy travels a line full of sharp edged runes, Cloud’s eyes lit up from more than just Mako.  
  
There is a familiarity here.  
  
He feels over the walls, finding an area closer to the entrance that makes the ice materia in his bracer send a harsh chill down his spine. He activates an almost sickly silver blue set of runes that way. It traces across the wall with an almost spider webs false delicacy. The two sets of runes pulse once before abruptly something grinds together and groans, a chunk of the floor dragging itself open.

Does he dare descend? Cloud scoffs, and uses a fire materia to create a licking flame in his palm. Glad for once, for the interference and presence of Jenova’s presence in his own to be able to manipulate magic like a proper Soldier First could. Mindful of the steps, they are worn with age and the minor intrusions of cold mosses and little burrowing animals and insects that find their way into anything no matter how sealed.  
  
As he does, the passage widens until it evens out at the bottom of the stairs into a much larger cavern and he has no idea how deep he has gone. The darkness to wide and great for his materia to light, so Cloud snuffs the fire and lets his eyes take their time to adjust, not hearing anything large enough to threaten him in the time it will take.  
  
What he sees steals a bit of his breath. Across from him is a vast statue of…a woman. Near her feet is a wide plinth, on and around which are a series of narrow carvings that look oddly like channels. He slowly approached feeling like he is being watched and judged now from the harshly angled face folded into the robes that must have taken ages of time to carve from the living rock.  
  
Something nags, in the back of his head and he touches the plinth carefully before unsheathing his sword again to rest the blood soaked blade on rock. It hits him like a fist to the gut.  
  
A strong but work worn and weather bitten hand laid hard on his shoulder.  
“We must observe the rites my Storm Cloud.” Hands that guided much smaller younger ones through the skinning and cleaning of a kill.  
“Never waste little Storm cloud. Never waste. We can’t afford to and she would be most angry.” Blue eyes, never as clear as his own but no less strong and white blonde rather then spun gold hair as she touches his spikes.  
“All things pay reverence to her in the end my growing Blizzard Cloud. Hel gathers those who do not die in glory.” Then once, just once, a very long hard trek to this very cave. His mother with two chips of green, forcing what little energy is in them to get the passage open.  
  
He’d been about to leave for Midgard. He’d laid his first full sized Nibel wolf here, unskinned, as a gift to Hel. His mother teaching him the words for his rite into adulthood; she’d helped him skin this one, as she had his first before it, blood coated hands gently marking his cheeks as she whispered.  
“Never forget. We are Strife, and Strife is in the blood. Determination and blood coated steel Cloud. One day, you’ll be the storm that changes the world.”  
  
Cloud had left with his mother’s blessing, and worry. In the city though, there was no place for religion like his. No animals to hunt and pass blessing over. Even soft muttered prayers to Fenrir to guide him in his endeavors, to Odin for the SOLDIERs going to war were met with suspicious eyes and shoves. His accent slowly changing to better fit in…He’d forgotten.  
  
He’d failed his SOLDIER exams and then the disaster at Nibel happened. It had been Sephiroth that brought it forward, just briefly with the Masamune first in his belly then in his chest. Rage white hot in his veins and indignity as Sephiroth called him a mere human.  
  
No.  
  
NO!  
  
He was Strife, and Strife’s were war and blood and steel. Cloud had taken all that he could, managing one snarled word in the language his mother had taught him. She would go to Valhalla, fighting with her little knives to try and save others. Sephiroth was going to Hel’s realm where he’d be chased by the restless souls if he had a say. It had hurt worse than the first time he’d lost a fight to his prey. Teeth latched onto his arm and shaking trying to dismember him until he’d managed to get a knife into its throat. Dragging himself down the length of Masamune, Sephiroth’s maddened green eyes wide with horror and perplexion; Cloud had felt a deep vindication as he used the blade buried in his body to force Sephiroth over the edge into the mako with Jenova.  
  
Cloud blinks himself from the memory. His hand curled tight around the stone meant for sacrifices to the goddess older then memory, of a concept older then Cetra and Jenova and Cloud himself and would be here long after humanity was replaced or forgotten. His accent is rusted, and he trips over some of the words but he feels a sense of satisfaction, deep and cold but not unfair, when he finishes.  
  
Cloud makes a trek back up the stairs for the body of the wolf, carting it back down. Hardly the best, but he’s got some years to make up for. He slices the fur from the body, and feels his mother’s hands on his own and her voice whispering in his ear. The meat he burns with a well-placed firaga. The hide he uses his time on, to tan it instantly before he tucks it over one shoulder under his pauldron.  
  
Cloud cleans his sword in the snow outside after he’s done, the temple closed off again. The mountain feels…more like home. Close to him, a deeper kinship with his newly recovered memories. The wolf fur tickles his cheek when he twists to resheath his blade, the dark of the night telling him just how long he actually spent in his memories and his ritual.  
  
The former trooper, turned scientific oddity and now one of the world’s savior smiles to himself just faintly as he hums a song his mother taught him once. Gathering his delivery from its niche and delivering it. He waved off their concerns for him to stay, talk about howling wolves and dragons. His descent is faster then has ascent, footing more sure though it falters when his memories briefly try to conflict. He makes it in good time, swinging onto Fenrir and sheathing the parts of his word in the front part of his bike.  
  
He snapped his goggles into place, pausing when his skin prickles. He turned, finding the pack from earlier staring from a high point at him. He stares at the Alpha who seems almost curious, than it turned its muzzle upwards and howls long low. The others slowly turned their muzzles to the sky as well to join him. It sounds like a chorus, a victory and an absolution.  
  
Cloud drove off the mountain, feeling like he regained far more than a memory or a piece of his mother.  
  
The next time he is asked, how he defeated Sephiroth the first time, he almost smiles.  
“I’m Strife.” And really, that is all he had to say.  
  
His mother’s hands on his shoulder, and a voice with it.  
“We are Strife. And the gods work through us.”  
  
Cloud is just happy that Marlene doesn’t get too upset with his new addition of a fur half cape instead of the old leather protector apron. He has good friends, he’ll make his next offering for them.


End file.
